Information and Transformation – Herb K – Workshop – Part 15 of 25 – Herb

Well, good afternoon. Good evening. My name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. So exciting, opening night. It's always exciting to begin this journey again. Normally we will start with a prayer called the set-aside prayer, but since I haven't given you any instruction on that or introduced it to you i would like very much for us to start our journey together with the serenity prayer the serendipity prayer is a prayer that addresses reality what is reality what can i influence what can't i influence I don't have any control lose the word. I don' t have any control over myself, I don''t have any control over circumstances and reality but I do have influence and some responsibility. The serenity prayer is about the development of wisdom and we realize that we can't do that so it's a prayer. Prayer are not about words prayer is about intention our intention here is to be very centered and awake and alert and paying attention during this next hour and a half as we receive our orientation to the journey that you've committed to for a year at least a year I invite you now and you can pray it out loud you're on you I invite you to pray it we won't hear you but in common spirit in the community of gathering please join me God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Well this is the first week of June on Thursday in Los Angeles at 4 o'clock 2020 and we're beginning a new journey with a new group of people some are new to the 12-step fellowship some are knew to the step work many have been in fellowship for a while and many have even worked the steps previously I'm asking you to have an open mind and an open heart Bill Wilson in the big book on page 58 suggested that we need to let go of our old ideas the man who took me through the steps the very first time was not my sponsor once I discovered I was alcoholic I got a sponsor he asked me to go to a meeting every day which I did he asked call him everyday which I did he told me to get a big book and read it and work the steps which I did but he gave me no instructions I went to a meeting every day I called him every day I went two step meetings and I went too big book meetings and i worked those steps in that first year of recovery on my own it was interesting but it did not change me I did not know that I needed change and And I did not know that it didn't change me. And I didn't know that there was a process for change. And you'll hear me say it regularly because it's absolutely central to my experience. I did NOT KNOW that I DID NOT KNOW, and I COULD NOT SEE that I did Not See. I'm 43 years old at that time. I have a graduate education in philosophy and psychology and theology. Those are three different disciplines. have a lot of information and this man I met in February of 1988 talked about the big book as a textbook and that there were precise instructions in there telling us how to work each of the steps and apply them to our personal lives and that he had had a spiritual awakening these were words I had never heard going to a meeting every day for four years these are words I never heard from my sponsor who had uncommon common sense he just didn't know much about the big book or the steps he knew about living life he knew relationships he knew managing finances he knew work he knew AA and how to navigate it going to meetings and being helpful but he didn't know about the steps and he didn''t know that he did it now but when i heard this man share words and experiences that i had never heard or had and i could see it in his demeanor i could see it in his eyes he had a light and i heard it in the resonance and the tone in his throat and my needle pointed north i had never had an experience like that with the teacher in my life and i'd had several really really good teachers after sitting with him for 45 minutes after the meeting and letting him know a little bit about my background and who i was he said herb please look at me now and pay attention you have a lot of information but you have very little transformation you have a lot academic knowledge but it's never connected to your heart your experience and your actions you have information but you do not have transformation and I knew that he knew not at the depth I know today but certainly there was an intuition that said this is a man with a solution I call him a big book step guide he was the mechanic with the steps he understood the textbook he had had a personal spiritual awakening a change in the way he thought and felt and behaved he realized humbly that it had been done to him not by him but not without him you'll hear more of that as we go forward he agreed to help me and he took me through the steps in February of 1988 we began that journey like we're beginning this journey and it took 12 months and it had a specific process of prayer he introduced me to the set aside prayer it's not a prayer in the big book it's not a Prayer in AA it's a lot of prayer in any of the literature it's not a prior in any tradition religious tradition it's a prayer just based on the intention of having our information and our experience set aside he said to me to the extent that you hold on to your knowledge and information to the extend that you h old onto your experience to that extent you're blocked from having any new information or experience so we pray a set-aside prayer with the intention of inviting the spirit whatever it is you believe in or don't believe in it doesn't make any difference it's the intention that there is an outside force that there power other than yourself that will intervene and set aside your information and set aside your experience so that you'll be given the gift of a new experience and be taken to a place that you've never known existed outrageous words outrageous promises but now by my experience 32 years later a complete understatement I hope you heard that I thought in 1988 that this man was given to grandiosity and exaggeration now as I pause on the path today this very day and look back over my shoulder I can see it was a total understatements that prayer is in the way of life document which I have asked as part of the instructions for you to download it's a 68 page document and we will use it during the entire journey as we go from steps 1 through 12 the backside of that cover is a set of prayers just so that they're all in one place the serenity prayer of course but the set aside prayer is there I use it here to set aside my knowledge and my experience of the 12 steps because my work has expanded from alcoholics anonymous where it started I started doing workshops 25 years ago when somebody asked me to take a group through the steps in the same way I take an individual through the steps that's what this plan is here i used the word alcohol in that prayer because that was my focus a couple years later the addicts wanted to come in and i changed the word to addiction later on the alanons and some other people from other 12-step fellowships wanted to come into the workshop and i changed it to 12 step fellowship recovery and later on probably six or seven years into my experience with it I was reading the big book again and came across a passage that I had never seen and you'll find that experience regularly as we walk this journey together and in the very first preface to the very first edition of the big-book in 1939 it's in your big book it's the preface of the first edition The last line in the first paragraph said, besides our way of living may have its advantages for all. I pay attention to the big book like the man who guided me through the big book. I'm a big book fundamentalist and literalist. In the best of senses, I read the big book and try to understand the words there, written in 1939, in the context of 1939, that culture. I read those words as Bill Wilson's words and I try to understand his background and his intention. And I use other resources to try to get very clear on the intent intent and the spirit, not just the literal translation but the spirit of the translation of the Big Book. And I stay very faithful to it. This will be the textbook we use. It's the only textbook that you actually really need for this journey. I have recommended that we use a supplement of the AA 12 and 12 because Bill wrote that in 1951 a commentary on his experience with the steps now that he was 15 or 16 years older I find it very helpful at the end of the step process in each of the steps out of the big book to then review the respective step chapter in the twelve and twelve and as the result of that awareness our way of living may have its advantages for all in prayer I was guided to open up my workshops to everybody all human beings not just people in a a not just people in Al Anon not just people in any 12-step fellowship but anyone who wants to have a spiritual awakening the purpose of the step process is articulated in step 12 isn't it having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps very focused I'm going to start your first assignment looking at step 12 appendix 2 in the big book what is a spiritual awakening what is the spiritual experience how are they different and how were they the same when Bill first published the big book in 1939 step 12 read having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps in the second printing in 1941 he changed that step 12 it's the only substantive change in the big book since it was originally printed oh there's some history changes there's numbers changes there are some percentage changes but there's no substantive change the big but from the original wording in 1939 until he made that change in the second printing in 1941 having had a spiritual awakening and then he wrote appendix to page 567 568 in the big book a page and a half to describe what they are and how they are the same and how different I started that practice last year just I mean I've been doing these workshops for 25 years and just last year I changed the approach because I'm always trying to fine-tune my approach to be more effective originally when I started the workshop we would lose 50 60 percent of the people by the time we got into and through the fourth step breaks my heart people come to this workshop suffering they hear by witness of other people and especially mine that this is a methodology to reduce and eliminate the suffering and they get into some real work and it becomes really difficult or very embarrassing or very painful and they leave that's like leaving surgery after they've opened you up on the table and saying, yeah, no, this hurts. I think I'm going to change my mind. See the healings on the other side of the surgery and the original group, the Oxford group calls this soul surgery. The original predecessor group to Alcoholics Anonymous called this work, especially step four, soul surgery, Bill Wilson was part of the Oxford group. He worked the six steps out of the Oxford group. They had nothing to do with alcoholics, they didn't like alcoholics. They were a Christian organization and their whole purpose was evangelization and conversion to the Christian message. But that was the best Bill could do. His best friend, one of his good drinking buddies, F.B. Thatcher, had gotten sober through the Christian mechanism of those six steps. So Bill said, I'm going to try anything. I'm tired of dying. He carried the message to Bob after he was six months sober. And Bob, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was already in the Oxford group. But please hear this. This will be so relevant to so many of you. You've been in a 12-step fellowship for a year or a decade, and you're still suffering, sometimes even from the addiction, but more often from unmanageability. I don't suffer and haven't from the addition in 36 years. And for 32, I have not suffered from un-manage-ability. I'm not exaggerating I found a way of living to establish a relationship with power that has empowered me so that I can navigate reality not without speed bumps but I've been given shock absorbers to be able to handle those speed bumps. Bill brought a message to Dr. Bob in Akron in 1935 about alcohol and addiction and powerlessness. Bob had thought, because he's in the Oxford group, a really bright brilliant surgeon there And a very steady, stable, deeply rooted Christian man. That it was a moral issue. That it is a knowledge issue. That it's a willpower issue. And Bill completely ignored that and said no Bob. The irony is Bill Wilson who had no training, no scientific background begins to teach a scientist about the body disease and the addiction and the phenomenon of craving and the mental defect of the obsession and the delusion but he talked using a vocabulary of hopelessness and powerlessness and his experience with alcohol and in the milieu of the conversation of experience Bob was able to hear that he had been going about it all wrong and as soon as he grasped that and took the action that the Oxford group had been telling him to take all along he got in stayed sober for the rest of his life so I want you to download that way of life document and i also want you from my website herbk.com h-e-r-b-k dot com and also the set of assignments they've been fine tuned both have been revised and fine-tuned specifically for this journey this year I mentioned earlier that the first assignment and if you have it you can look at it and if don't just make notes don't distract yourself by trying to find it right now if you don't have it or you don t have access to it just pay attention and make notes assignment one says obtain a new big book and you might resistance like no i have a big book yeah i know but does it have any highlights in it does it has any underlines in it does not have any margin notes in it doesn't have any commentary in it from your own prior experience now you're welcome to do anything that you want i have no rules please hear that i have no rules none zero it's the spirit of the 12-step fellowship culture no rules Bill says we don't need any in a different context he was talking about their traditions people were complaining about laws and regulations and requirements and he said we don t need requirements and laws and regulations there are only two disciplines in alcoholics anonymous there are two disciplines one is alcohol and one is God you're either going for one or you're going for the other here that please there's no resting place there's no middle-of-the-ground solution he says those things in the big book I used the dimmer switch a lot as a metaphor for this journey of spiritual awakening of this spiritual life of this journey toward the light and away from the darkness I use the dimmer in contrast to a light switch that image will help you as you read appendix 2 in the back of the book but a light switch goes on boom and it's on full power and it goes off the same way not a dimmer switch a dimmers which goes up a notch at a time a click at a time you don't even know with the incremental slow and subtle progress forward that it's producing more light until there's enough light for you to realize there's a difference but it goes down the same subtly, imperceptibly and the darkness descends and pretty soon it's dark enough to relapse. And it's darker enough to die. This is not about becoming good people. This about survival certainly with regard to our addiction but even with regard to unmanageability the second half of the first step we'll talk lots about that we'll spend three or four months on the first step if you heard me you probably are wondering what the hell is he going to do for three or 4 months we're going to dive deeply into the understanding as portrayed in the big book the understanding is I've been exposed to it in terms of especially unmanageability which is not as straightforward in the big book but more especially in addition to that knowledge is to have an experience an experience of hopelessness and doom and powerlessness and no choice words you've heard forever and your brain dead to it because you've hurt it forever when we finish this process they will have a new relevance to you because you will not only understand them more clearly each one of the words you will had an experience with them a visceral embodied experience that will provide this solid foundation bill uses the building of a spiritual arch through which we walk to a new freedom step two he calls the cornerstone step three he calls keystone in step five is the final reference to the spiritual arch at the end of the fifth step page 75 and you can read it it's got great promises he said now at the end of step five we walk through the arch to a new freedom see this is not about addiction and this is not about unmanageability oh yeah that's the presenting problems but this is about freedom freedom from the addiction that's the minimal promise the maximal promise is freedom from unmanageability not just diminishing but freedom so that you're empowered to deal with it effectively on a daily basis on a day basis i think that's what bill means by saying we have a daily reprieve we have a daily retreat conditioned on the maintenance of our spiritual life living our way of life steps 10 11 and 12. those are the tools that help us navigate unmanageability and keep maintained so that they're not in our way and an obstacle to living a harmonious and congruent and integrated by so if you choose to get a fresh new clean big book if your current book is satisfactory to you then keep it the second item on assignment one is to create a set-aside prayer you're welcome to create your own based on the intentions and the principles that I have suggested, or you can just use the one on that page. That's the one we'll be using at the beginning of every workshop each week. And it is the recommendation from me because it was my experience to pray that prayer every morning when you first encounter your practice or your quiet time, use the set aside prayer. If you don't have a morning practice, begin it with the set-aside prayer, begin having one and then anytime you sit down to do the work, anytime you sit down to the work. The more substantial assignment is item number three, read and highlight. Appendix two in the back of the book 567, 568, read and highlight. And as you're doing that, try to think what's telling us about a spiritual experience and a spiritual awakening. How are they the same? And how are they different? And the reason I start this process with step 12, it is the mission statement. It is the value proposition. It came to me last year. Maybe if people really understood what they're doing and why they're doing it, what's the value? What's the mission? What's the motive right in the beginning and keep that carrot in their vision. They'll be more motivated to stay with the painful parts of the process. And then I'm going to give you an assignment on step 11 Because that's the tool that gives us power to understand and to do, as the step itself says. And then I'm going to take you into step 10. Not a deep dive in any of this by my standards, but an acquaintance with step 10 as a tool for creating realignment and harmony in our lives on a daily basis so that we can then go to step one armed with a clear vision of why we're doing this work, steps one through nine, and the tools that will allow us to actually be more conscious and more effective in the process. Now I'm going to have you take a look at or at least make a note about assignment two. two item number one i want you to take a look at but it's a longer journey than assignment number one assignment number one I'd like you to have completed the way I've just described it by the next week at this time so that we can talk about it next week and you can relate to the teaching that I will give you at the beginning of the workshop but assignment number two item number one has a longer time frame to it you'll know it says over the next four weeks and it might be the next 4 to 6 weeks I want you to read from the title page of the big book up to but not including the doctor's opinion it's all the forwards and the prefaces to the first second third and fourth editions. Lots of wonderful rich history, lots of wonderful philosophy and observations by Bill and comments by Bill or other people after Bill died. And we will go over that material but not soon. I mentioned what we're going to be doing for the next month. Step 12 next week, step 11 the following week, 10 the following week and then we will begin looking at the roman numerals up to the doctor's opinion but the key to this reading not only is highlighting which you may or may not have incorporated into your approach to your spiritual journey and order the 12 steps but i am recommending it because when i found when i am highlighting i'm very focused i'm much more focused than the words and the sentence structure begins to really speak to me when i'm highlighting a word or a phrase that resonates with me sometimes i'll give you a question to be thinking about as you're reading so that you would highlight something that responds to that question i give you four questions here and i suggest that you put them on a three by five card as a bookmark I am I'm I am NOT suggesting that you sit down and read from the title page through up to the doctor's opinion in one sitting in fact if you read one or two pages with a highlighter with these questions that might be quite enough in terms of a discernment process the questions be thinking about them being asking them yourself but don't respond to them until after you finish the reading read the instructions that i hope they're very clear they meant to be very clear and effective is the 12-step process what i really want to do at this time why do i want to submit to this process at this point those are two different questions and it's not subtle once you ask them of yourself at this moment am i willing to go to any length and what does that mean in what areas of my life am I being dishonest with myself and others please anytime I asked you to ask yourself a question lots of times I will say and there's no right answer but even if I don't say it there's no right there's only your understanding there's only your response there's on the your writing there's only your reflection there's your answer and all of that might change change over time probably will the key here is to be radically and rigorously honest the big book uses rigorous i turn the burner up on that radical radical honesty with yourself radical comes from the latin word radix meaning root at the core of your being be transparent or have the willingness to be transparent to be given the gift of transparency write down what you think what you feel what you have a whispering intuition of and I even recommend that you make a commitment to yourself that you're not going to read it to anybody I mean you probably will and it will be eventually my recommendation but write it so that in fact you feel totally safe that you're never going to be asked to reveal this to anybody except yourself and when you write it you will reveal it to yourself there's a dynamic that's revealed in the way of life document if you have it you could turn to page four i got this model from my first experience in 1984 when the hospital in which my wife was hospitalized for her alcoholism asked me about my drinking can you imagine they asked me about my drink don't you understand she's the drunk that's why i'm here to support her recovery and they said well why don't you take a look at your own history you see they knew but they also knew that i did it now that i had no clue but i was arrogant enough that i would have really resisted any accusation so they asked me a question to ask myself with the hopes that i would have some kind of a breakthrough which i did what is your relationship with alcohol do bullet points in an autobiography not of your life of your drinking pattern i began at 12 i stopped at 17 when i went into the monastery i thought it would be a good idea to become a catholic priest a story for a different day i was in the monastery for seven years 1957 to 1964 it was a fabulous experience I enjoyed every bit of it what I didn't know when I registered what does the 17 year old do in terms of due diligence I didn t do mine I knew I wanted to be studying to be a Catholic priest so I went to this place to become a Catholic Priest and once I signed up and I was in it I found out it was monastery yeah religious order poverty chastity and obedience, as well as a monastic order that had silence. I was silent for seven years. Can you imagine? I haven't stopped talking since. So this hospital program asked me to ask myself the question, what is my relationship to alcohol? And then I got some information about the family disease i got some information about addiction i got some information alcoholics anonymous and they asked me to write out my my recollections of my journey with alcohol and then they asked me to read it out and as a result of writing it out but most especially reading it out i had an experience you can see that on the diagram i was given a question to ask myself i was given some information i took some action and i had an experience wow i think i have a drinking problem we've brought up some more questions well now what do i do i'm not going to explore it any further it's the model that we will use for the entire journey i will ask you to ask yourself some questions i will give you some information and so will the big book i will ask you to take some action the actions that i'm going to ask you to take are listed in the way of life document on page 12. prayer reading listening reflection writing discussion those are the component parts of what we will be doing the set aside prayer the assignments of reading part of the assignment structure is to listen to the recordings on the website it was recorded about six or seven years ago in a weekly workshop and then it was edited professionally and placed on my website it's a comprehensive review of the big book and each step I'm going to do that with you personally as we go through this on a weekly basis but many people find listening to a different resource at a different time unpacks it in a different way if you can make the time it'll be very worthwhile your time and at the very least you might want to experiment with it. Reflecting and writing is the heart of the matter here. That's the work that you will do. Reflicting in the milieu of prayer, that set-aside prayer. Asking for divine intervention for an open mind and an open heart. And then we'll discuss it here. I'm going to ask you right now to do some work. I've been talking for a while. I am going to as you right know this is a workshop. This This isn't a meeting of your 12-step fellowship. This isn�t a sponsor guide Q&A. This isn �t a book study. This isn t a step study. In fact, this workshop is not connected to any 12- step culture or fellowship at all. hear that this is a gathering of people usually from a 12-step fellowship and the gathering purpose is to do the steps out of the big book to have a spiritual awakening that's the common theme so we're not in any 12 step fellowship this is non 12-step meeting from my standpoint you and your sponsor can determine what it means for your own personal journey and recovery and your meeting frequency there are some questions on page 13 in the way of life document which you could review in the same way I suggested that you review the other questions not so that you can put down an answer it's not a test these are reflection questions so that you are prompted to reflect using that set aside prayer where is my life not working what are my efforts do I really want my life to change what changes would I like that's for your consideration over the next week or so and right when in fact you want to write a response to that but right now I would like to pause and stop talking but ask you to ask yourself a couple questions number one why are you here what was your motive for coming to this workshop know that it's going to be an hour and a half the weekly basis for 52 weeks and that it will probably have anywhere from two to five hours outside of the call for your if you're going to do it in the way that's intended to be done the call plus two to 5 hours a week huge commitment almost a part-time job why are you here is the question there's no right or wrong answer there's just maybe it's my sponsor told me to maybe it I heard and I wanted to kick the tires to see what it's like or maybe I've really heard witness to the power of this process and I want to have that experience there's no right or wrong answer there's just your answer but it's going to be a baseline now because I'm gonna ask you to store that in a place in your binder I'm assuming you're going have a binder for the way of life document in the assignments and to store the answer to that question someplace where you can refer to it in 12 months because I will ask you to go back to it and look at it to see if there's been any shift in your behavior any shifted in your consciousness any shift in your life have you experienced a change and this is the baseline why am I doing this work and the second question no right or wrong answer there's just your response what is the source the primary source of my suffering please hear the question I didn't ask you what your suffering is the question what is the primary source of your suffering no right or wrong answer just your answer but I want you to do that now I want to write it now so that you have the answers currently on this first call to these two questions that will be a baseline and a reference point for you 12 months from now because then I will ask you different questions to see if there's been that shift that is promised I believe as part of the instructions you were asked to read and sign a participant agreement and then to either forward it by postal mail or to email it to me read and sign the participation in agreement something I started after I was doing the workshops for about five years I had lots of attorneys and psychiatrists and psychologists in my workshop and individually half a dozen of them came to me over two or three years saying this work is so powerful that you better get people to understand that it could cause a lot of emotional difficulty and you don't want to be held responsible for any of the negative potential negative results and that's the intent so that you are very clear i am not responsible for your spiritual awakening but i am also not responsible for your nervous breakdown now in 25 lots of people laughing in 25 years I have only had one person have to withdraw from the workshop she actually had a psychotic break in the fourth step and her psychiatrist fortunately she was dealing with him and he was common sense he said just stop the work for right now there might be a time when you can pick it back up we dig deep and the way i've been exposed to it my experience is that we penetrate the unconscious in the fourth step we penetrate the unconscious i've had lots of therapy i was trained to be a psychologist and a therapist at one point i chose not to do that or alcohol actually chose that for me and but I've had lots of therapy before recovery and lots of Therapy in the first 10 years of recovery none of the therapeutic process or people that I dealt with was as an effective transformative change as this 12-step process that's why i have such a passion about it it's a methodology that's simple it's not easy as bill said it's simple but not easy but it's effective there is not one person who has done this work and finished the ninth step that i'm aware of there's not one percent that has not had a spiritual awakening meaning some form of change in the way they think and feel and behave the most effective human development transformative tool i've ever come across a little bit about me i was married 52 years widowed two years ago after 52 years the final 36 of the marriage was a blessing because she was in the program I was in the and we were able to walk this path together and change and share our lives in a very very wonderful way I have three adult children the two girls are in 12 step one is in aa 30 years and one is in al-anon 30 years and they both have worked the steps out of the big book with this process not with me but with people who are equally committed to and knowledgeable about the bigbook and the step process and they have very strong and wonderful lives they're married to men who they met in aaa and they both have programs that are very strong we have seven grandchildren i have a son that's not in any 12-step program he's our young and he doesn't seem to need any he seems to be able to balance fun and seriousness i i that's a recessive gene from his mother i'm sure not for me i have three books the first book was a result of doing these workshops after I had put together lots of handouts, I found that it would be important to put it all together in a book. That's the Guide to the Big Book. It's been superseded by the assignments that you have. The assignments are much more effective and accurate and less cumbersome than the guidebook that was published in 2004. My 12 Steps to Spiritual Awakening is still a very valid uh textbook literally to supplement the big book and the process because it shares not only my instructions my consciousness at the time but also my journey and my experience and then hazleton asked me three years ago to hazelton's the largest publicator publication organization of spiritual 12-step literature in the world they asked me to do a book on meditation which i did and that's where i basically i believe had you awareness that starting with step 12 and then 11 and 10 would be effective because i wrote the first chapter on meditation a very broad comprehensive view of intentional consciousness prayer meditation contemplation transcendental meditation um centering prayer vipassana buddhist and trying to get my arms around an understanding and putting it into a simple english language where people can understand what to do if they want to do it in terms of improving their consciousness but the the magical approach was that uh the second chapter is looking at step one through the lens of the power of step 11 looking at powerlessness through the lens power and then proceeding to look at each step through the lines of power so it's a unique approach it's not as relevant to the step work as we're doing it but if you're interested in supplementing your understanding of and practice of meditation that might be helpful the most helpful book would be 12 steps to spiritual awakening strongly suggested but nothing's required the dictionary is a very important book to our process probably second only to the big book because I will be asking you to look up terms terms that you think you know terms that probably do know but when you look them up in a dictionary you get confirmation and clarification or to the breadth and the depth and then it might lead you to other words and phrases and understandings It's really important that you plan your work to the extent that you're serious about having a spiritual awakening and doing these steps as described in the big book. Each one of you will approach it differently with different diligence and consistencies. I know there's 30 or 40 percent of you that are perfectionists. you may not know it but my experience with the groups probably 30 40 percent maybe more are perfectionist oriented and it's not very helpful so this is about a human process and you'll never do it perfectly and you do it to the best of your ability but if you plan your work and then work your plan you'll have a better chance of success and what I mean by that is after we get off the call tonight maybe even immediately but certainly tonight or maybe tomorrow morning but don't let it go any longer than that take a look at the assignment and take a look at your calendar and determine when you're going to have time to do this work because it's gonna take some time some commitment on your part if you want to do it correctly if you wait until you have time to do it you won't ever do it because you won t ever get time but if in fact you treat this work as a priority and the same as you would a doctor's appointment you look at your calendar and on wednesday at between two and four i have some time and on saturday morning between eight and ten i have some time in the morning then i make an appointment with myself that's the time allocated to do this work is there's a higher probability of you doing this work if you wait until you have time if you get on the call next thursday you will have probably tried to do something on thursday morning or thursday afternoon to assuage your guilt for not having done anything and being somewhat prepared and you won't be prepared and it won't serve you well and eventually because the backlog of work that's undone you will get frustrated because you can't participate or understand where we are and you will leave the work life by the yard is very hard life by the inches a cinch I remember that from one of my college professors he just said you know do it incrementally now some of you will do a discipline 15 or 20 minutes every day and some of your discipline two hours on saturday and others of you are not built that way in terms of structure and discipline honor who you are look back over your shoulder as to how you've gotten other things done and then use that as the model if in fact this is your priority. Hi, thank you Herb. I'm an alcoholic food addict in Al-Anon or have worked Al-anon before. I just recently finished working the step and it was very fruitful. I definitely had a spiritual awakening. It also brought me to a place of realizing that I have some further work to do. I originally plugged in because I thought it would be a step guide, which I'm still going to do. But as I was listening to it, I really felt a tug in my heart to do it again for these other things that have come up like Al-Anon issue sorts. It was a little disconcerting to me because I really don't want to do again it was a lot of work. It was very fruitful but I have been thinking that I wanted to do EMDR therapy for these issues and it just seemed, I know it's not easy therapy, but I guess there was a thought process that I could attack these things with these things through EMDR. so my question to you is could you give me some help and guidance for historians in me and what they do the same thing or what yeah just an excellent question but I need also to clarify because I may not have heard it accurately you've done the steps I don't personally use the terms my way because it's not literally my way it's using the big book and having some precise direction with each of the steps someone could use an interpretation of this steps and but I knew what you meant I'm just trying to help other people use the vocabulary especially when we're not together and you're talking to somebody else who might have their hackles raised by somebody saying they they did the steps herbs way and it's kind of like yeah no not really um so um when did you do that work and from what perspective um i did it from uh with my food issues and i just finished it um a month ago okay so you went from steps one through steps nine yes yep and i've been working and you did a complete fourth step and fifth step yes in your fourth step did you do a four column resentment inventory yes all right and um did have you finished your ninth step or are you still working on your eighth step um i finished my eighth step i still have a few amends to make in my ninth step that i that are not accessible to me yet it's perfect perfect you're right on the money it's great and um you have instructions on steps 10 11 and 12. yes all right and do you have a daily practice consistently on meditation yes wonderful all right so my sense is that you should continue with your 10 11 12 practice finish your amends finish your immense meanwhile do your EMDR therapy and do not start the steps again okay do not start them again if in fact you want to be on the listeners call hearing the sharing it's a wonderful meeting doing some laser focus work you might go well that was interesting of the what herb just said or somebody else just said about step two i think i'll revisit that or oh i i didn't have quite that uh instruction with regard to column three in the resentment inventory i think I'll do a couple just to experiment to see if it helps me see some new stuff you see what I'm saying you're going to cherry pick based on your meditation and your sponsor direction but you're not going to commit to doing the entire work I see okay thank you how's that how does that feel that's wonderful and how one follow-up question how do i um i i would like to be of help to anybody you mean as a step guide right perfect wonderful and and again that that's a wonderful supplement complement to the work that you're doing in finishing the ninth step and then engaging in the EMDR you're gonna just have a wonderful healing experience and it's too much to try to do it all and the steps are the steps or the steps so sure you went through it with a perspective on food but the point is not about the food the point about establishing a relationship with power and cleaning up your channel so that you can have a more vital vibrant relationship with power so that's going to happen with what you're doing okay thank you very much it's a great question and I'm glad we're recording it because that's a great question for other people to hear thank you so much finished the whole thing it's piggybacking a little bit on what was just said the whole i just finished and it was so great i mean it was a deep dig and um on top of many other deep gigs in the time i've been in program um and i find myself realizing that i have been abstinent a very long time but maybe it's this everything is a work in my mind and I find myself realizing gosh I have so much freedom but often I'm not very happy or I don't see myself that way the reason I'm here I think I want some direction on that similar to what the last call was I was planning on just going back in but I mean it was so thorough and I did do it with a sponsor and I did the fifth you know and I guess I just went some a little more direction and I'm focusing on unhappy the question was why are you here it was answered in the last time I did this now it's a whole different thing I want to be more free in a happy joyous way once you get a taste of freedom and a taste of the light, and a taste of joy, and the taste of change that comes. Any human being, but especially addicts want more! So it's wonderful, and more is available. Having said that, let me ask you a couple questions. You said that you just went through the steps with a sponsor or step guide. did you finish the journey I just finished it maybe two weeks ago and when you say you've finished it what does it mean I went all the way through the 52 yeah so I did all it I listened to each one it took me six months so half the time that this well that's fast by the way you went at your own pace no it's wonderful so when you say are you finished um have you finished the names on your eighth step in terms of the ninth step amends yes and you have a consistent practice on 10 and 11 and 12 I do it hasn't been quite as formal as the the big book way though when you say what has it been as formal uh i do a lot of spot chip check inventories i'm always checking myself before i wreck myself i you know but the absolute instruction yeah oh no that no no no you you're in you're using your intuition and your experience that's don't don't get robotic into ritual oh i love ritual well no human beings do but but when when we get into a ritual we become brain dead yeah so this whole point is to wake up and to have a improved consciousness on the daily basis so i'm more interested in your 11th step uh my 11th step um i have piles of stuff around me right here and i get up every morning and it's reading writing um meditation it's gotten more formal since i did listen to you what let me ask what's meditation for you uh after i read i go through the the morning that you suggested and then um i'll do my reading and then i will just set my timer on 10 minutes and sit there quietly and just breathe why why yeah i guess i thought that was the instruction i thought i was supposed to herb why don't you want to re-listen to my step 11 instruction okay all right everything else you said is great except for that 10 minutes it's wonderful that you're spending 10 minutes but you're not in step 11 in that 10 minute you're doing some something I'm not sure what it is but it's not meditation as you just described it meditation in my understanding of the big book is directed thinking I asked God to direct my thinking then I begin thinking I'm not quiet at all I'm really busy thinking about my day and about my life and about my character defects and about what God wants and I'm listening then not with my ears but I'm in that ten minutes of quiet then you listen you listen you listened you listen you listen for guidance and you try to discern what's just noise from your ego and what's noise from the light what's noice from the spirit what's noise from the higher power okay all right yes so uh back to your question though uh give me a summary of the questions because i've kind of lost track of this what do i do with this year yeah because i want i want to do this year although part of me is wondering why and the only answer i have is i want to be a little i want more free hold the question continue listening years and reviewing the assignments because that there might be something in there that will help expand your consciousness and your experience so i'm saying you don't need to think about doing the total megillah again in terms of the assignments but if you hear something that's different experiment with it okay excellent no no see your your questions and so far this is a very wonderful uh recording because you're asking questions that will help a lot of people thank you oh good thank you thank you so much thanks kim i also um wanted to make a comment i did a three-year study about four years ago on happiness a three year study it was comprehensive by my standards and the bottom line it is very simple the bottom line is anybody who wants to be happy will never be happy if that's your goal you'll never be happy because happiness is not a product it's a byproduct i'm quoting somebody but it's the summary of so many studies that i reviewed from statistically significant and credentialed people and the bottom line of these studies was in summary if you really want to be happy have a connection with a meaning broader than yourself in 12-step language that would be a relationship with God or higher power and the second component is be an active contributor to the human beings around you in the 12 step language of course that's step 12 so that's why I'm so I have such an emphasis on 10 11 and 12 because that's the source of our organic human development that's the way built we're built to have a relationship outside itself with reality god is we don't understand it and the relationship with our community through contribution and helping if we do those things it's counterintuitive but if we do those the byproduct will be our sense of freedom and our sense of joy and happiness and I have an amazing a sponsor with a lot of depth and weight and understanding of these steps and I've definitely had a spiritual experience with that but clear there's clearly there's more I guess my question to you is how can my a a sponsor be involved in this process with me or do I need to seek out a different step guide for this process it's a big question I've got a couple approaches for you wonderful question you said that your sponsor has depth and weight meaning that they're they understand and have worked the steps out of the big book yes sir and they've had a spiritual awakening and they've taken you through the steps of the Big Book absolutely that would be obviously a primary resource for you depending on the time you have and your inclination and your conversation with your sponsor there is no reason that you couldn't engage a step guide to be a sounding board for your questions and to see if there's some dialogue in there that might be subtly or majorly different than your own interpretation and or what your sponsors directions have been so I'm saying you may want to supplement what you've done oh and let me ask this question again just like the other two people have you when did you do the steps from 1 to 12 with the sponsor out of the big book I finished I'm still in the midst of doing some of my amends you're fresh on it okay but I completed the steps like I completed my step 9 and did my 10 11 and 12 like book work with her it's been more than a year yeah yeah no that's great so how are your ninth step amends going um they're good some of them are harder than others from a percentage and wet finger in the wind estimate from a percent standpoint what percentage has have you accomplished finished I would say about 60% great excellent wonderful progress and and do you have a specific plan for finishing the other 40% um some are in God's hands I don't know what that means I don' t know what that means meaning in terms of timing in terms of God presenting the opportunity and another one no no do you have a plan with regard to making the amends that you have those 40% that are unfinished God's not going to have a planet for you you have to have the plan I guess the answer to that would be no there's there's an idea of a plan we still continue to work through that through each one and the weekly meeting that I have with my sponsor so we address one each week there that's a plan no no that's very good specific plan where you're doing you're continuing to work on the low unfinished ones and you're holding yourself accountable with your sponsor but it's a contiguous consistent process that's the plan that's wonderful okay yeah yeah like the other two I would recommend if you have the time and you want to be on the call treated as a meeting and a supplement to the work that you've done if there's something that speaks to you because it's either different or because it speaks to you and it's the same that you're inclined to you're invited to do a little bit more work or a lot I would do that but I wouldn't begin the whole process again until after you've finished your steps finish the ninth step finish the nine step and that's why i don't leave it to god to plan my ninth step i have a plan a specific plan and i typically want to finish my ninth step even if i can't see the person or i shouldn't see the person or people are dead or i can't identify where they are i have a plan and it's not up to god it's up to me now god can show me spontaneously anything he wants and or she at any time but i have a plant to specifically finish and and then i usually recommend because it's my experience that people don't do the steps again even after they finish their ninth step for a couple three years practice 10 11 and 12 and grow in your consciousness and your compassion of helping other people and then my experience was about every three to five years for a while and then it was there was a 10-year hiatus 2003 and I haven't reworked steps 1 to 12 with anybody since 2003 because I have a very consistent rigorous practice of 10 11 and 12 which I believe keeps me clean and conscious I am a compulsive overeater I'm in LA and I am working the steps with a sponsor and we are envision for you and their their recommendation is to do step four quickly and to get through the steps quickly and not linger too long so I started about 20 years before that they had good results and then stopped and then you've been around for a while how long have you how long have you been consistently back in in a 12-step fellowship since 2015 I've had some I've had some relapses I've got some recovery and I've had some real abscess so I have been through the steps in vision all the way through once but that would have been in 2015 2016 and and so now what is your question well whether I should work these two at the same time should I go on with the brisk step four with my sponsor and finish the steps and continue also with this um I think so you sound like a person who can walk and chew gum at the same time so right yeah and and you did the steps thoroughly five years ago is what you just said 2015 and now you're in a process where they want you to clip through the fourth step reasonably with some you know commitment and regularity and get get it done wonderful all right I'm not sure how effective that'll be for you but it's just fine meanwhile if you're on this call we won't get to the fourth step for five to six months so you're going to do a deep dive into step one we're going to be on step one for three months there's no reason that you can't be grappling with the experience of step one at the same time you're dealing with the written step one in your step four inventory i think that would actually be quite powerful that was uh that was my hope yeah yeah yeah no i'm i'll be interested in your feedback as you make progress with uh your own steps through this process not not not about the your fourth step that's your business and doesn't have anything to do with us but as you stay with us and you're have an opportunity to chat i would really be interested in what your experience is because i give information i give feedback i give a recommendation but unless you tell me whether or not it's working i don't know how valid it is yeah understood thank you i'm an alcoholic i've been around for 35 years nice and i've done the steps a cup a few times yeah i started about a year it was a year ago with um another woman in the program however and we're not we're not finished with the fourth step all right we've we've just had trouble i would like to do one two i would love to listen this time because i almost feel like i've been playing with the four-step for so long that i need a refresher on one two and three I agree 100% and and not only just listen of course but do the assignments that speak to you in other words you may may not want to do the full assignment although I would recommend that you do steps one two and three as if you've never done them okay as your as you're dealing with your fourth step be a be a very committed and active listener that you're actually doing all of the assignments within the timeframe that we're doing them that you act as if you're a completely committed active person as a listener okay alright that makes total sense to me I think it will and it and it does right now but you're gonna find that there's gonna be a lot of work and you're going to now be doing double duty in terms of the steps one two and three at the same time you're dealing with or struggling with step four so there will be some challenge on your part which might signal to you that you're doing too much but it's not true all right you can do this you can you can again walk and chew go i hope so thank you all right you're better you bet thank you it's a great question sandy thank you so much i'm an alcoholic i was a drug addict i quit smoking sick my sobriety date is july the 11th of 88. i quit smoke and cigarettes in 89. i went to eating disorder clinic in 1990 and i've been in 20 years of oa i've done oa 90 for three fa when i put the food down here comes the lust yeah i'm uh right now i'm presently almost committing suicide with a fork and a spoon and uh i worked 12 steps back 20 years ago with the spiritual awakening book of the big book with a sponsor that 12-step guide called the spiritual awakening i worked the steps in um oa 90 back in 2010 with uh oa90 sponsor where we just did it exactly as it's written in the big book i'm just confused last night you said either you're going for the alcohol or you're going for god so i have a a strong uh information and want to have that connection but i just feel like i'm in the food fog yeah and i don't know i'm just doing this as a good friend of mine told me about it felt like i needed to to do the steps i'm just trying i haven't gone back to treatment you know i hadn't been locked up i just kind of i guess you can probably read my words that i'm struggling yeah yeah and and it's um it's kind of a classic story and um my sense is that when's the last time you went through the steps completely out of the big book one through twelve 2010 yeah so you're you're right ten years yeah you're ripe ten years you need a new experience and I hope you heard my comments many of them concerning setting aside your knowledge your journey your problems your experiences all of the rest of it just it's interesting it's just not relevant gotcha and to the extent that you hold on to it it's going to block you from having a new profound experience with this journey now you i can tell by what you've said your tone and now you're shaking your head you're willing to set it aside oh yes but you can't that's why it's a prayer you're inviting the spirit to enter your mind and your heart with a crowbar good you got it that's right and so again I would love it if you stay with this journey and report in a little bit periodically on the call so that we can track your journey because you're your your kind of situation is the most difficult one but I'm totally confident that it's amenable to this process as and I have a completely uniform experience of all the people who do it not perfectly but consistently not consistently perfectly and finish their net ma'am ends that's why I was talking about finishing a mess it's so important to finish the immense and then when I talk about 10 11 and 12 consistent on the daily basis is critical and and in this journey you will be exposed to and challenging yourself with regard to your understanding of 10 11 and 12 and your consistent practice of it and we're gonna do that early as I mentioned we're going to take a look next week at step 12 the spiritual awakening part not the principles and sponsorship won't look at that until we get to step 12 then we will do a deep dive into step 11 and unpack what at least my understanding is and practice of meditation is. And then we will do another deep dive into step 10 so that we have a very clear understanding as its simplicity, but it's necessity. So yes. Oh, and going back to comments, there's a game, I've never played it, but I'm aware of it and I've observed it called whack-a-mole and it's where you have a hammer and a board game and there's a gopher that pops its head out and when you hit the gophor down underneath the board it pops up in a different hole this is a perfect metaphor for addiction classically i see lots of people because i go to aa meetings men i go into men's meetings normally who are 10 and 20 years sober but they're 50 to 100 to 200 pounds overweight because they've substituted one addiction for another they're abstinent from alcohol but the addiction has popped up because they're not treating the underlying cause and condition which is the spiritual malady unless you're connected to a consistent practice of 10 11 as well even though you're abstinent with regard to your primary addiction the another addiction will pop up because the addiction is your medication until you get the spirit which is your medication a connection to the spirit thanks very much I primary has always been Oh a and I just I finished for the second time through a vision for you the 12 steps and I'm sponsoring three people but and you're never finished but anyway right now my primary is Naran on my son passed away nine months ago and I find my spiritual fitness tested right now so that's why when your program came up I was very interested in it my previous sponsor and a vision for you because they don't always stick with you kind of thought I was doing too much because I'm also doing the step study in Naran on do you think I am over reaching myself doing a step study in Naranon with a sponsor and working it with the sponsor and sponsoring OA I have my abstinence in both anyway I guess that's my question do you think i'm overextending myself that's a conversation that would require probably 15 to 30 minutes of personal dialogue with you and I'm not going to do that here but I'm not also then I'm familiar with the Nara non northern narcotics anonymous approach to the step process so I don't know what's entailed with that many times the processes are parallel and it can be confusing when they're parallel if in fact the instructions are very different then it's unlikely that it would be confusing but it's likely that it'll be a lot of of work and it's really about your capacity to multitask and sort of keep it moving in a intelligent way because this is not the work to check off the boxes and get it done this is the work process it and have an experience it's not a task it's not an event it says and it's an experience and so I don't I can't give you an answer to that question however I've made a note here concerning what you're going through which is obviously grief and I lost my wife two years ago as i mentioned yesterday after 52 years of marriage and um it took me two years to process it to a place where i'm walking on level ground i mean i still am sad but it's not a debilitating sadness i still miss her but it's not a debilitating absence I believe as of January February of this year I began walking on level ground but I I paid attention to the grief process and if Thomas I don't need to ask you any questions about that but the grief processes are very different process and I recommend that people get some help whether it's volunteer help or professional help from a grief group and or a grief counselor there's a book that I really really recommend highly it's written by a couple recovered alcoholics 40 years ago called the grief recovery handbook and they instant they created a group called the grief recovery Institute so they're here in California in Sherman Oaks at least they were the last time I was aware of it and so it might be if you haven't done any grief work or even if you had and you're not exposed to their work it might be helpful to you okay yeah and uh by the way here's a creative innovative approach that i've been using instead of using the word addiction in terms of powerlessness use the word grief use the word sadness use the world betrayal use the word whatever it is is the dominant consciousness of the event or circumstances or whatever use that word instead of the addiction if in fact the addictions not the issue anymore you know I was taking through the steps in the early I think it was probably like oh five or something all four perhaps something like that so it's been a good 15 17 years since I've taken them and I'm currently I don't have an accountability partner or a sponsor that I can rely upon my sponsor and I haven't spoken in a couple of months probably and so I'm wondering how I'm going to be able to engage in the process without that accountability partner it's a great question thank you for asking it and I'm glad that you're on the call we had a conversation a month ago or so a couple weeks anyway and so I'm glad you're here um you could certainly call your sponsor and talk to your sponsor about that but my sense is your sponsor may not resonate with this work the way we're going do it so he sends out a list of sponsors and step guides and or and select a step guide not a sponsor I mean you need a sponsor for different reasons and you probably need to do that on a local basis is always my recommendation but a step guy can live any place in the world as long as they're number one have done the steps out of the big book in whatever fashion they don't have to obviously have done it with me just do it in any way that you can and uh and had a spiritual awakening as the result of that those would be the two criteria that um i would use for a step guide and those are the people that are on this list and it'll be coming out oh maybe by the end of this month so and there's no rush yet you can do this work on your own through steps three quite frankly very nicely it's step four when you actually need probably some guide each one of us needs a specific support accountability and guidance okay herb is that my the eagle or or my ego is very is um it's very strong it pushes back it pushes back just as I didn't think your step study was going to be easy, but I find that these things that bind us are very strong indeed. It's not easy at all, but it's not overwhelming. it just is you show up you do the next indicated thing to the best of your ability realizing that you cannot even do it to the rest of your life to the very best of your ability but do it anyway well wonderful please join me in the serenity prayer again keeping in mind it's about reality reality is immutable meaning it doesn't change reality is non-negotiable reality doesn't consider my person i had a man call me the other day her perp i've had a new spiritual awakening in my meditation i said what's that he said the voice said to me don't take reality personally it just is what it is and I need to navigate reality reality doesn't need to respond to me brilliant let's pray the serenity prayer with that kind of consciousness God grant me the serendipity to accept the things they cannot change courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference